Entries by Ian Skellern

Dubai Watch Week 16-20 November, 2023: The World’s Greatest Watch for Collectors Fair Bar None

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Baselworld is no more, Watches & Wonders, while open to the public, is focused on press and retailers, and Geneva Watch Days (GWD), while growing, is still relatively small. In less than 10 years, Dubai Watch Week (DWW) has developed from relatively modest beginnings into the world’s greatest watch fair for collectors bar none. No other fair comes anywhere close in terms of access to brands, watchmakers, and fellow watch aficionados.

12 Colorful Watches from Only Watch 2023 (the 2023 Theme is Rainbow): Plus Best Story, Wildest Clock, and THE MOST ‘Only Watch’

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Held every two years, the Only Watch charity auction of exclusively unique pieces has grown into THE most anticipated watch auction worldwide and features some of the most creative and innovative horology on the planet.

For the 2023 Only Watch auction, the theme is ‘Rainbow’. However, while there are an incredible 62 unique piece timekeepers on offer, only a fraction of them really ran with the rainbow theme. Ian Skellern shares his favorite rainbow watches from Only Watch 2023 here.

Patria Brigadier Tourbillon Subscription Edition: A Beautifully Hand-Finished, Swiss Made Tourbillon for 18,000 Swiss francs is the Bargain of the Year, perhaps the Decade! – Reprise

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Love them or hate them, one thing that most collectors know is that tourbillons are very expensive. That’s all changed with Patria’s Brigadier Tourbillon Subscription Edition costing ‘just’ CHF 18,000 for a beautifully hand finished Swiss Made tourbillon.

Collector Commissions: Bespoke Sartory Billard SB05 with Exotic Meteorite, Aventurine, and Lapis Lazuli Dial – Reprise

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The framed aventurine central dial of this bespoke Sartory Billard SB05 has a depth that allows us to easily imagine we are looking through a maze of galaxies toward the far edges of the universe. And framing that is a ring of meteorite, a true space material. What else makes this watch so unique?

New McGonigle Ogma for 2024: No Watch, No Photos, No Sketches, No Launch, But First Editions Already Nearly Sold Out – Welcome To the New Normal

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There are no photos (either real or CAD) nor sketches of the McGonigle Ogma, and there’s been no public announcement; however (surprise, surpise!), most of the watches have already been reserved. How times have changed. In the words of Dorothy to her dog in The Wizard of Oz after being sucked up by a tornado, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Grönefeld 1941 Grönograaf: My Once Predicted Winner for the 2022 ‘Best Chronograph’ at the 2022 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève – I (kind of) Called it Right – Reprise

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When Tim and Bart Grönefeld showed Ian Skellern their prototype 1941 Grönograaf during Watches & Wonders 2022, he loved it. But he didn’t think it would win “Best Chronograph” 2022 at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève because he thought that prize would go to the then-soon-to-be-released MB&F LM Sequential EVO. Ian has since changed his mind, and here’s why.

In Praise of Anglage: Exceptional Hand-Finished Anglage is Difficult, Slow, and Expensive so the Big Brands have Given Up and Few Seem to Have Noticed (or Seem to Care): Thank God for the Indies! – Reprise

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Big brands are now making beautiful, reliable, and relatively accurate “traditional” mechanical watches, but the handcrafted work many of us value is disappearing. Highly skilled watchmakers and artisans are rare and expensive: there just aren’t enough of them available to churn out the large quantity of nice watches now being sold. And why bother when nobody seems to have noticed?